Jace's Fault
by teamwayherosternwood
Summary: After a demon encounter that leaves Clary severly, and possibly permanently wounded, Jace can't help but think back on all the things he could've done differently to save her. Once she has recovered, will she ever forgive him? Will she ever love him again? Or will Jace be stuck in the past?
1. Chapter 1

Jace sat in the booth, a cup of coffee poised between his hands as if he were going to drink. He was exhausted, yet he couldn't be more awake. Jocelyn sat across from him, her long fingernails tapping relentlessly against the hard counter. Her hair; so much like Clary's, was twisted up in a messy bun, forgotten about after the long hours of waiting. Jace couldn't help but notice her emerald eyes, usually bright and full of life, looked dull, like a candle with no flame. She had miraculously aged in the past half a day, and Jace imagined he looked the same.

"Another round?" the blond waitress—Kaelie asked, eyeing Jocelyn's half empty mug. She shook her head, another flaming strand escaping the tight elastic that held it. "Are you sure? Third round is on the house?" Jocelyn ran her hand through her hair then scrubbed it over her long face.

"Damn it, I said no!" she half-yelled, the frustration evident in her voice. Kaelie stammered and apologized, but eventually left Jace and Jocelyn alone. Jace eyed Clary's mom warily. It had been twelve hours, and she hadn't said a peep to him. To Luke, yes, to the doctors, yes, to the love of Clary's life? No. Jace Lightwood remained off her list of people she wanted to talk to, but Jace understood why. It had been thirteen hours before...

"Jacey! Please, please, please, pleaseee take me with you!" Clary had nagged. Jace couldn't help but think how cute it was when she nagged. She was in fighting gear, much to his dismay, her red hair was tied back and each little curl was tucked behind her ears. Her eyes were pleading and Jace wanted so badly to give in—

"Fine, but stay with me, watch my six at all times, and yours, don't lose anymore seraph blades, steles, or any other useful weapons this time, please," he said, taking a step closer to her with each word. "And By the Angel, Clary, please be careful," he whispered. He took her soft face in his hands and kissed her lightly, trying not to deepen the kiss _too _much; they had somewhere to be. His hands ran through the length of her ponytail, and his fingers itched to pull the elastic out and tangle his hands in her hair, but he knew they had to go. He pulled away first, though Clary seemed just as reluctant to let go.

"Ready?" he asked. She nodded, slipping her hand into his as they exited his room and made their way to the Institute's elevator. Locking themselves in the tiny moving room caused both of them to once again latch onto each other. Jace knew it was not a good idea to get into this now, but Clary was just so intoxicating, and Jace couldn't keep his eyes off her, let alone his hands.

The elevator dinged and Jace pulled back just as Mayrse pulled open the gate. Jace knew his hair was tousled, and Clary's cheeks were flushed, but all Jace's adoptive mother did was give them a knowing smile and clicked the up button in the elevator once they were off.

Once outside, Jace stuffed his hands in his pockets, trying to fight to battles at once: The one against the bitter chill of winter, and the second, by far the most difficult, keeping his hands off the intoxicating redhead standing beside him on the curb. They hailed a cab, which Jace couldn't help but think of the time that Clary had expressed how she felt about Shadowhunters and cabs.

"You guys should have a demon hunting van," she had persisted, "You shouldn't have to drive around in a lame, old cab that smells like cigarettes and had barf stains on the backseat."

Jace took Clary's hand, figuring if they had the cabbie to watch over them, he could behave himself. He traced patterns on her palm and lines along her fingers until they arrived where Isabelle had texted Jace to meet.

It was a run-down apartment, door ripped off the hinges and black ichor stained on the grass. Jace knew all the cabbie would see was the way the apartment used to be.

"This place smells," Clary said holding her nose once out of the cab.

"Demons," Jace whispered, producing his buzzing Sensor. Along with it, his Seraph Blade, which he gestured Clary to do the same. They entered slowly, Clary behind Jace, a witchlight glowing softly from her palm. They crept silently through the worn down place, their shoes hardly making any noise on the wooden floorboards. Jace wondered absently where Isabelle was.

"Upstairs," Jace mouthed at Clary, who nodded. They climbed warily, careful on the rotting boards. Jace's mind immediately flashed to the time in the Hotel Dumort, though this time, he imagined the fight would be more in their favour.

At the top, the steps broke off, leaving a large cap between the next level and where they were standing. Jace knew without a doubt he could jump over it. He did, landing in a crouch.

"Clary, take my hands," he said. His hands stretched as far as he possibly dared until his hands clasped her small, freckled, cold ones. "I'm going to lift you over. Just jump up when I tell you," he instructed her. "Read, one, two, three, JUMP!" he yelled. She jumped as he swung her up and around, catapulting her expertly onto the top level. Clary was breathing hard when Jace stood up, brushing off his trousers and shaking out his hands. He hoped he didn't get splinters; they were a pain to get out and a problem no stele could solve.

"That was intense," Clary breathed, reaching to pull her seraph blade back out. Jace stepped in front of her as they continued down the narrow hallway to a wide foyer. It was much like the rest of the building; flowered wallpaper, wooden floors, burned out chandeliers. Clary ran her hand absently along the wall and pulled back with a finger full of dirt covering. She rubbed it on her black fighting gear and came to Jace's side.

"There's nothing here—" Clary broke off as a slithering _thing _jumped on her. Jace cried out for her and lunged for the slimy demon. Clary was screaming clawing and stabbing the demon with her seraph blade. Jace threw the demon to the ground and stabbed it right in the chest, watching as it dissolved. Clary was whimpering on the floor and softly cried out for Jace.

"Clary, gold still, I'm going to draw an _iratze _on you," he fumbled in his pockets and came up empty. He quickly reached for Clary's pockets, fumbling and scraping at fabric.

"Damn it, Clary, I told you not to lose your stele!" He cursed profusely and picked her up. He ran to the dilapidated staircase and leaped across the wide gap to the top of the stairs, all the while whispering to Clary.

"Keep your eyes open, keep looking at me, don't let go, Clary, hold on,"

...

Jace stared at the funny patterns on the table. If he blurred his eyes, it looked like a face, if he squinted, it looked like an odd sort of duck. But when he just stared at it, it was just a jumble of lines, and figuring out what other shapes he could find wasn't going to fix their problems.

"Jocelyn," Jace started, not meeting her eyes. He knew deep down inside of him that it was his fault. Clary was hardly trained. Jace hadn't known it would be a Greater Demon, hadn't known that the only person that could save her was halfway across the world. They had to rely on a mundane doctor, who knew about Shadowhunters, and claimed he had a special remedy that would filter all the demon poison out. Jace highly doubted it, but he was their only chance.

"Damn it, Jace!" Jocelyn screamed, tears filling her eyes, "This is your entire fault! I never wanted Clary to be a part of this world, and you brought her into it! And to bring her into a situation like that, untrained, not even _knowing _what was inside? I bet you didn't even read the full text from Isabelle before you went off and risked my daughter's life." It was true. Jace had read: _3429 Old St. Meet me there. _ But what they whole thing said was almost entirely different. _3249 Old St. Meet me there once Mom gets home and calls Magnus, and the Conclave, we're going to need some backup. _The demon hadn't died once Jace had stabbed it; it just disappeared to another room, knowing that the damage had been done. Mayrse and the Conclave had gone later, found it and killed it, as much as you could kill a Greater Demon.

But after all that, Jace couldn't utter an explanation he could only mutter a soft apology and stick his head in his hands and will himself not to cry. He did this. It was his fault.

Just then Jocelyn's phone rang. Jace listened:

"Yes, this is Jocelyn," Jace couldn't hear from the other end, but he watched as Jocelyn's eyes widened and the color drained from her face. She dropped the phone, a soft mumble coming from the other end.

Jocelyn shot up from the table, grabbing Jace's sleeve and dragging him along behind her. Tears were streaming down her face. His heart plummeted; he knew it. It was all his fault. The only girl he loved. He could still see her eyes, filled with terror with the demon crushing her ribs, smashing her head to the wooden floor. That was his last sight of her, he would never see her again, that is alive.

Clary was dead. And it was Jace's fault.

**This is just something that I've been thinking of writing for a while. I haven't been able to update **_**Switched, **_**and I'm sorry, but a lot has been going on in my life and the characters just aren't speaking to me the way they did before. I don't like the writing, the chapters are short and not well written and nothing ever adds up in the end. This summer, I will revise it, and hopefully start up again with a brand new chapter 1. I'll leave it up until then, but once July 1****st**** comes around, it will be off. Thanks for reading this. It isn't a one shot, and I can't promise the updates will be frequent. But I will try my hardest to make the chapters longer and better and hopefully intense? Any ideas, just PM me. Luv you all **

**teamwayherosternwood**


	2. Chapter 2

It was snowing when they exited Taki's, a popular Downworlder restaurant. Jace impatiently shoved his arms through the sleeves of his thin jacket, rushing forward to catch up with Jocelyn, who had made it half a block already. It didn't long, Jocelyn wasn't much taller than Clary, and it only took six or seven of Jace's long-legged strides to fall into place beside her.

"Jocelyn—Mrs. Garroway?" he asked, feeling uncertain for the first time in his life. Jace Lightwood was always so sure of what he did, never being intimidated, holding his head high. It was an unfamiliar feeling for him; Jocelyn was the only person—besides Jace's adoptive mother, of course—that could make Jace feel smaller than a crumb of a crumb. Though he had tried to initiate a conversation, she kept her steely gaze forward and walked at a brisk pace for what Jace assumed would be difficult for an out of practice Shadowhunter, but Jace found rather leisurely.

But it was anything but. Jace could picture Clary in his mind; Clary laughing, her face scrunching up, and her petite hand raising to cover her mouth; Clary drawing, her head bent in concentration her gaze fixed on the sheet of paper in front of her, nothing, and nobody could break her out of her world once she was in it; Clary fighting, biting slightly on her lip as she tried to balance, or take Jace down when he trained her. But whenever he tried to picture her lying motionless in a papery white hospital gown, the image slipped through his mind like trying grasp water through your fingers.

He felt away, like Clary in her world, but he was in his. There were no honking cars, no homeless people wrapped in rags on the street, asking Jace for money, there were no business men walking briskly with their phones clipped to their ears and yelling to the receiving end. There was just him, trying to navigate his way through a labyrinth, searching for a red flame in the middle. Clary was that red flame. Jace looked pleadingly at Jocelyn, wishing she's tell him what was going on, but her gaze stayed fixed ahead.

Jace felt tears sting the back of his eyes as he stared straight ahead into the white wonderland, the biting wind whipping around his ears and blocking out all the noise.

Jace soon realized with a start that Jocelyn was holding something out to him. He took it without question. It was a boring grey cell phone, sadly outdated, with a large antenna sticking out from the side. It wobbled slightly when Jace flipped the phone open.

"Call Luke," Jocelyn said, breath puffing out like a dragon. "Tell him to meet us at the hospital."

Jace did as he was told and held the metal contraption to his ear as they stopped at a crosswalk. Jace wished there was a rune to make heavy traffic disperse. Sadly, no such thing existed.

"Luke," he said when Luke picked up on the third ring. "We're on our way to hospital, can you meet us there?" Luke agreed, a heavy sigh emitting through the phone.

"Is she alright? What kind of demon was it?" He asked. Jace informed him that it was no demon they had ever seen, or at least one that has been recorded.

They hung up shortly after and Jace saw the hospital as they turned a corner. Jocelyn cried out and ran to the wide double doors, pushing them open roughly. A blast of warm air shot out and thawed out Jace's face, though he had never really felt the cold. He was numb. They frantically went to the reception desk where Jocelyn informed them that they were there to see Clary.

"Ma'am, she's in—unfit condition for company, she's not ready for visitors quite yet," the receptionist replied, looking nervous.

"Please, I have to see my baby," Jocelyn's eyes were sparkling, bringing out the emerald. The receptionist—Wanda, from her nametag—sucked in a deep breath and released it, scrubbing her hands over her face.

"One moment," she said, clicking away on the clunking computer in front of her. Jace heard his name being shouted behind him and he turned abruptly. Luke was walking in the front doors that they had entered moments before. Luke showed up behind him and put his hand on his shoulder, his other hand resting lightly on Jocelyn's waist. He was dressed as he normally was, flannel and jeans, though he had a light coat thrown over, but Jace noticed he had purple bags under his eyes, as though he hadn't slept in a long time. Jace imagined he looked the same.

Wanda Gave them the number to Clary's new room, expressing profusely how _different_ as she had put it, Clary was. Jace had seen a dead body. But no matter how much the receptionist tried to warn him, the real sight made Jace want to throw up.

Her face was greyish, completely drained of color, except for the freckles dotting her nose and cheeks. Jace felt his heart drop. Clary and death had never been in the sentence for him before; he had always sworn to protect her, and he failed. But as he watched closer, he saw a thin tube running from her arm to a big metal contraption and the closer he watched, he saw the rise and fall of her chest—

"Clary!" Jocelyn cried, throwing the door open and appearing at her side. She took Clary's hand and clutched it between her own two. Jace stood awkwardly in the door, once again unsure if he should be there at all. Jocelyn obviously didn't want him to be there, and Luke was just being polite, he assumed. But in the end, his desire to touch Clary, to make sure she was really there won over. He stalked forward and touched her hand. It was so cold.

They stood in the room for what felt like hours but probably wasn't more than half an hour. Waiting for her eyes to open, when they fluttered softly. Jace gasped.

Instead of their normal vibrant green they were a sickly grey, they almost matched perfectly to the grey clouds littering the sky. She glance around, surprised to see all the faces. She looked at Jocelyn.

"Mom, what happened?" Jocelyn smiled and rubbed her hair back. Jace could tell she was trying to hide the confusion in her gaze as to why Clary's eyes were changed.

"You were attacked, sweetheart," Jocelyn said, squeezing her hand. Jace's hand had pulled back from Clary's; it felt different, not wrong, but like Clary didn't want him to.

"The last thing I remembered was... I was standing outside Pandemonium with Simon. How long ago was that? Was I attacked in line?" Jocelyn sucked in a breath. She watched Jace. His mind slowly started to piece some of what Clary had said.

The night Clary had been out with Simon was the night she met him. If the last thing she remembered was before she met him—

She didn't remember him.

It was like a stab to the heart; he slowly back out of the room, his heart beating erratically in his chest. He bumped into the table on the far end of the room. His gaze snapped up just as Clary met his eyes.

It's strange, knowing someone for as long as you did, knowing them as much as you do, and knowing that they don't know you. Jace felt as if his insides were being picked apart, piece by piece, his heart shattering. It was like the time at the lake, when Valentine had stabbed him. But this was much, much worse.

Clary took one long look at him. Her gaze swept down and rested on his belt. Then she screamed.

**Okay so I updated fairly quick, I think. If there are any corrections that need to be made, I'm sorry. (I'm really bad at revision) So help me out, and please review. Thanks to those who have updated already (it helps me update faster) Thanks! Luv you all**

**teamwayherosternwood**


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